Three Strategies to Compete in a Changing Market

Remember those New Year’s resolutions you made just a few weeks ago? Let me guess, eat healthier, lose weight and make 2018 your best year ever. Were there any resolutions to become an expert on Facebook marketing or working more with millennials or investors? Have you noticed we are in a changing real estate market? Not just regarding supply and demand. Rather a change on how people are buying and selling their property.

We just don’t compete with FSBOs anymore!

For example, Zillow Instant Offers is a program that allows sellers to receive offers from investors along with a CMA from a Zillow agent advertiser.

The NAR is protesting the recent agreement with Fannie Mae and Invitation Homes as it may intensify the housing shortage with rents rising as inventory shrinks. Freddie Mac wants to participate by financing midsize landlords that would also reduce inventory essentially competing against homebuyers.

How can we forget about Offer Pad, Open Door and low-ball offers from investors? Are you too old to remember when it all began with, We Buy Ugly Houses?

Many local brokers are working to establish their own database of inventory that may or may not be exclusive. The market is changing right before our very eyes from just a few years ago. How does one compete in a changing market?

Know Your Strengths

First, remember you can’t be all things to all people. However, we must become proficient at finding sellers or buyers of property.

We always start by defining your strengths and acknowledging the areas needing shoring up. For example, one person’s strengths may be technology, while another person still has an AOL email address. Take a moment to re-assess your core strengths. That is, where are you a rock star? Let’s work with something you love and are talented at instead of trying to be something you are not.

When the sixth grade parent-teacher conferences came for my daughter, Sydni, I was told she excelled at English, writing and literature. Then there was a suggestion that she might need a tutor for science. The teacher said, “We want to bring her grade up so that she is excelling at everything.” To which I thought, “Excel at everything? That’s impossible!”

Can you imagine telling Tiger Woods that he should get a coach to help his free-throw shooting? Tiger is doing just fine in golf. He doesn’t need to waste time at the free-throw line. The same is true with you. Let’s work with your strengths and acknowledge that some areas need shoring up.

In our business model we hired Don as our accountant. Although I am a fan of QuickBooks and have worked within QuickBooks, the real question is, “Should I be doing QuickBooks? Or is my time better spent doing something else?”

Three Strategies to Succeed

If you have ever been on a date, then you understand marketing. If potential clients do not know you exist, you won’t make it past the 24-month threshold of success.

We suggest a three-prong approach to marketing to your ideal client. The first step is to determine our marketing budget. Which then begs the question, “How much is a client worth to you?” Are you a relationship builder or is burn-and-churn your style?

Once we determine how much a client is worth we can determine a reasonable marketing budget to go find that client. Even if a budget is minimal there are many effective ways to promote and create action. One example is working with the local pizza restaurant to staple your call-to-action flyer to their takeout and delivery pizza boxes.

Without accountability and measurement, it is easy to forget about those New Years’ resolutions. Why re-invent the wheel? Find someone who has done it before and hire them to reduce the time to your success. Have quarterly meetings to track last quarter’s goals and set realistic goals moving forward.

Using this three-prong approach ensures your clients and potential clients will see you build credibility as well as branding you and your services. These three simple strategies will continue to keep you productive and prosperous.

Once you become proficient at these strategies, or if you already accomplished them, the remaining pieces are to tweak your marketing.